Posted 11/09/09 at 07:28:34 PM by Ryan Whitwam

If the Barnes and Noble Nook sounds like a great Christmas present, you might want to preorder one now. Everyone’s favorite bookseller has announced that due to massive demand, Nook preorders have been pushed into December. There are also reports that Barnes and Noble stores will have no in-store Nooks until mid December.

According to a Barnes and Noble spokesperson, “Nook has quickly become the fastest selling product at Barnes & Noble. In fact, there is so much consumer interest in Nook, that pre-orders have exceeded our expectations." The Nook will be selling for $259 whenever you can find one. Barnes and Noble opened their eBook store back in July and it currently offers over 700,000 titles.
 
The Nook will be going up against Amazon’s Kindle reader. B&N is hoping to leverage their brick and mortar stores to gain an advantage over the all online Amazon. Are you considering getting an ebook reader this holiday season?

Read More

Posted 11/03/09 at 02:26:47 PM by Bart Salisbury

The Nook is off to a rough start. Spring Design has sued Barnes & Noble over what it alleges are the misappropriation of trade secrets and the violation of a non-disclosure agreement. Spring Design is claiming that pirated design features from its dual-screen Alex eReader, incorporating them in to Barnes & Noble’s Nook eReader.

The point of contention for Spring Design is something it calls the Duet Navigator. This design feature consists of a gray-scale upper screen for reading text, and a lower color screen for navigation. Interestingly, the Nook possesses the same basic design feature. Spring Design says it started filing patents on the Alex back in 2006. (The patent on the Duet Navigator is still pending.) Barnes & Noble apparently co-opted the ideas while working with Spring Design earlier this year.

Darren Murph, over at Engadget, made the early call on this: “Judging by the hastily prepared web site coincidentally appearing on the eve of the B&N device launch, and the domain’s registrar, Albert Teng, who has numerous patent applications (not patents granted) covering ‘electronic devices having complementary dual-displays,’ we’d say this announcement is quite possibly a desperate attempt to lay claim on intellectual property rights instead of a real product with real manufacturers and real content partners.”

Read More

Posted 10/28/09 at 05:05:41 PM by Bart Salisbury

The more the merrier, at least it seems to be for Barnes & Noble, which has inked a deal to sell Plastic Logic’s QUE eReader along side its own, recently announced, Nook eReader. This move follows an earlier agreement between the two companies to allow QUE users access to book downloads through Barnes & Noble’s online bookstore.

The QUE is, according to Plastic Logic, about the size of an 8.5 x 11-inch pad of paper, and has a shatterproof touch screen display. The QUE is less than one-third of an inch thick and has built-in WiFi and 3G wireless capability (through AT&T). The QUE can handle PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents, and will come with tools that allow interaction with, and management of, content. Actual design features, however, are pretty much a mystery, as Plastic Logic hasn’t been very forthcoming with images showing the QUE’s configuration.

Barnes & Noble hopes the combination of eReaders will mount a credible challenge against Amazon’s Kindle. According to William J. Lynch, president of BN.com, “Carrying [Nook] and QUE allows us to provide consumers a one-stop destination in Barnes & Noble stores to demo and buy two of the best eBook readers on the market.”

Pricing and availability were not included in the announcement. It is expected that Plastic Logic will announce such details at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Read More

Posted 10/19/09 at 07:36:05 PM by Ryan Whitwam

All the rumblings were apparently accurate. Barnes and Noble is releasing an eBook reader tomorrow according to the WSJ. The new eReader on the block will be called the Nook, and will be priced at $259. Many felt that Barnes and Noble would try to get the price in under Amazon’s Kindle, but that didn’t happen.

The Nook will have an eInk display, and a color touchscreen below the main display. This may have something to do with the price. The new device will also have an, as yet unspecified, wireless connection for downloading books. Apparently the Nook will allow users to, “lend eBooks to friends”. If true, this could be a killer app. With the Kindle having solid control of 60% of the market, the Nook will need all the differentiation it can get. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to get all the deatils. So... interested?

Read More

Posted 10/08/09 at 08:37:07 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Fresh from the rumor mill comes word that Barnes and Noble’s upcoming eReader may be running Android. This would certainly be a nice change of pace from the fairly low-power operating environments in other eBook readers.

Android seems like a great fit for eBook readers. It already has built-in support for wireless technology, and being open-source, a custom eReader interface could easily be added on top of Android. There could even be eReader specific apps in the Android Market. Not to mention, the modding possibilities are endless. This could mean a much more open environment than the tightly controlled Kindle model Amazon has gone with. Even if it isn’t so out of the box, it is Android. Someone will come along and hack it.

Barnes and Noble has released apps for both iPhone and Blackberry, but not Android. Perhaps this is why. The mysterious eReader may be announced next month, so we could know the truth soon.

Read More

Posted 07/30/09 at 06:00:52 PM by Andy Salisbury

For some time now Barnes & Noble has been a WiFi hotspot for hipsters with ironic t-shirts all across the nation, however these hipsters have had to create accounts and pay in order to reap the benefits. But, thanks to a recent desire to push a fledgling online bookstore, the prices and account requirements have been lifted.

Barnes & Noble struck a deal with AT&T to provide free Internet access to those within their walls, all thanks to an online bookstore that they hope will compete with Amazon. They’re so confident, in fact, that they’re in the process of developing a reader of their own (currently in development with Plastic Logic).

Barnes & Noble is boasting that their eBookstore is launching with 700,000 titles (500,000 of which were public domain offerings from Google), compared to Amazon’s launch catalog of 300,000 volumes.

Should you find yourself in a Barnes & Noble enjoying the free WiFi, feel free to check out the online bookstore here. Or, if you’d prefer, continue to spend time with us. We prefer the latter.

Read More